"There are cool elements of all those gaming styles in XCOM, and they're mixed together in an interesting brew.

"Our goal would be to really appeal to all those players, and to introduce them maybe to some gaming that they haven't played before. An action gamer might play the game for the action part and [think], 'Well strategy is pretty fun too.'

"It's not trying to conform to a genre, but trying to find ways to bring this topic to life in the most fun and exciting way possible."

XCOM: Enemy Unknown is the strategical and more faithful recreation of Julian Gollop's 1993 cult hit. Developer 2K Marin is working on an FPS version of XCOM named, simply, XCOM.

Sid Meier said his studio Firaxis, maker of the Civilization series of games, was a natural fit for the strategical rebirth of XCOM.

"We have people here that love the game, honour the game, revere the game - understand what made it great in the first place."

Sid Meier, director of creative development, Firaxis

"It comes down to, this is a game we wanted to make. We loved the original iteration of it, and we thought we could do a lot with this game," said Meier.

"That's essential to us: that we get excited about the project from day one. This is something that feels very cool to us. And when we saw what we could add to the original XCOM in terms of graphics and all the things that are available today that weren't available - it seemed like a natural game to us.

"XCOM was an incredible game to start with," he went on. "The original was on every top 10 list and is a fantastic game. The fact that that property was available was amazing. That combined with the fact that we have people here that love the game, honour the game, revere the game - understand what made it great in the first place. That made it a natural product for us to do.

"The amount of time that had gone by, the state of the market, the acceptance of strategy even in the console world. Certain stars were aligning that allowed this game to make sense for us."